Trump Imposes a 100% Tariff on China Over Rare Earth Minerals
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least.”
President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on China:
It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.
Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1st, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.
It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
DONALD J. TRUMP
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 10, 2025
Earlier today, Trump slammed China in a long Truth Social post over a supposed plan to hold rare earth minerals hostage from other nations.
“Some very strange things are happening in China!” said Trump. “They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China. Nobody has ever seen anything like this but, essentially, it would ‘clog’ the Markets, and make life difficult for virtually every Country in the World, especially for China.”
In April, Leslie wrote about China imposing export restrictions on seven types of rare earth elements.
Those elements include amarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium.
Trump said many countries have contacted him about “this great trade hostility.”
“The letter they sent is many pages long, and details, with great specificity, each and every Element that they want to withhold from other Nations,” Trump revealed.
Trump reminded everyone that we’ve had a great relationship with China these past six months.
However, Trump felt China “had been lying in wait.”
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least,” explained Trump. “But the U.S. has Monopoly positions also, much stronger and more far reaching than China’s. I have just not chosen to use them, there was never a reason for me to do so — UNTIL NOW!”
Trump continued:
The Chinese letters were especially inappropriate in that this was the Day that, after three thousand years of bedlam and fighting, there is PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. I wonder if that timing was coincidental? Dependent on what China says about the hostile “order” that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move. For every Element that they have been able to monopolize, we have two. I never thought it would come to this but perhaps, as with all things, the time has come. Ultimately, though potentially painful, it will be a very good thing, in the end, for the U.S.A. One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America. There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Trump also said that he has no reason to meet with Chinese Dictator President Xi in two weeks at APEC in South Korea.
Leslie has done a great job covering the war over rare earth minerals. It started in March with an executive order “invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to accelerate domestic production of critical minerals.”
China answered with export restrictions in April. The communist country took further steps in July by imposing tighter controls on “technologies vital to battery manufacturing and critical mineral processing.”
Then, in July, China limited the flow of critical minerals to Western defense manufacturers, hampering the development of drones.
Well, the U.S. answered back by pouring almost $1 billion into “developing technologies for mining, processing, and manufacturing critical minerals in this country.”
Another Trump executive order has allowed the country “to accelerate deep-sea mining by expediting permits and reviews for seabed mineral extraction in both U.S. and international waters.”
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Comments
To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. has a plentiful supply of these minerals and all that stands in the way of bringing them to market is the usual suspects – environmental watermelons.
Perhaps now that a significant source of their funding has been cut off – thank you Mr Trump & Mr Musk – these groups will have trouble mounting a challenge to opening up sufficient mines to make China irrelevant.
We’ve known for decades that China would eventually hold the world hostage because the green gestapo makes it too difficult and too expensive to exploit our own resources. Everything comes with a price and no mining is pollution free. We can do it cleaner than China but that’s not good enough for the eco terrorists.
Time to raise the stakes. Buy back all land and properties owned by Chinese companies and start with land by US military bases. No US farmland for China. Kick all Chinese students out and. Ship them back to China within 60 days.
That probably is a next move, or at least something similar. We are probably still investigating what is on chinese owned land here, especially in light of recent events.
FTFY. Why pay the CCP. Just confiscate all the land and property that they own without compensation.
Revoke all Chinese visas no matter if they are students or otherwise. Move them all out of the country and permanently prohibit any Chinese nationals from re-entry for any reason.
Sounds like Trump has financial levers to pull. It may involve pain, but in the end gain. Time to mobilize the world. Move to expel China from the WTO.
DJIA dropped like mad after the news
It may involve pain, but in the end gain.
There’s an asset price bubble in valuation of stocks and real estate. It’s not a bad thing for prices to decline from time to time, particularly when a prolonged period of historically low interest rates have skewed the % of ownership of those assets towards the top of the economic pyramid. Reversion to the mean is good and despite the sell side rah rah cheerleaders lies prices of stocks and real estate don’t always go up. Clearing out the mal investment and creating opportunities for nimble, smaller, younger companies and individuals to prosper is a necessary factor in maintaining a healthy long-term economy.
Uniparty Danny will be along shortly to decry this affront to his Chinese masters.
The Tom Lehrer tax.
The Econazis have needed a beat down for years.
Typo: it should be samarium.
Strictly speaking, rare earths run from 57 to 71 in the periodic table. Lanthanum through Lutetium. Scandium (21) and Yttrium (39) are chemically related.
Obscure stuff, but it matters these days.
Where the pollution comes from isn’t the mining, particularly.
It comes from separating the different rare earths out of the ore, a difficult process. That’s why praseodymium (59) and neodymium (60) have names that mean “green twin” and “new twin.” And why dysprosium (66) comes from Greek for “hard to get at.”